The Letter
by hell-whim
Summary: The first mistake was Winters's.  Rated for language.  AU


**Title:** The Letter

**Author:** freak-pudding

**Disclaimer:** _Band of Brothers_, the book and miniseries, and all associated articles are the sole property of Stephen E. Ambrose, HBO, and the BBC. This work is not based on the actual persons and situations, but on the fictionalized story presented in the miniseries. No copyright infringement intended.

**Summary:** The first mistake was Winters's. AU

**Author's Note:** Posted elsewhere first, figured it was time to put it here.

**The Letter**

The first mistake was indisputably Winters's. Letting Dike along on the patrol was an unavoidably moronic move—the captain's hands were tied by command chain and Strayer's simmering impatience. So he complied and silenced the boys, doing his best to keep the X.O. towards the back and out of their way.

The second mistake was Dike's.

He'd been spirited as they set out, rifle slung casually over his shoulder, voice ringing out to emphasize some arbitrary detail about the snow or the Kraut tripwires the boys stepped carefully over. Dike's passable indecision prompted an endless stream of comment on every aspect of the patrol. He was oblivious to Winters's pleas for silence, even after the shots began.

Diffusion of responsibility after that, they all agreed, was understandably muddled.

"We tried," Martin was saying. "Babe¼tried, but¼we couldn't get to him."

The boys are gathered in a shallow basin at the side of the road. They sit in a ragged clump—dirty, bleeding, cold. Nixon is motionless.

"Was it an O.P. or their line?"

"Their line," Martin confirms. "He knew we couldn't¼. He ordered us to pull back."

"You said he was hit in the neck," Nixon accuses.

"He signaled. The Krauts laid a base of fire as soon as he was down, and¼"

He trails off, in respect, and Nixon wanders past the pines, fingers flexing over the top of his empty flask.

Snow dusts the edges of foxholes, softening the spikes of splintered trees. The shelling ended only a few hours ago.

"Ten minutes," Nixon snaps. "Get a squad together."

"They're assembled, sir."

"Get Doc."

"He's ready."

"Tactical columns," Nix snarls. "Martin, take point."

The distance back is lengthened by shadows and the fury of their own retreating footprints. Martin sees one that most resembles Dike's and spits in it.

"Up there," Bull says softly, and Nixon motions them to a crouch. The snow started up again a few minutes ago—already the crossroads look friendly and alien. Nixon signals; Martin crawls forward.

"Where?"

"We were there," Martin whispers, indicating the shadow of a log pile. "Behind it's the road."

"Krauts?"

"Thirty yards at most."

"You hear anything?"

"No."

"Stay down."

"Sir."

Nixon moves cautiously forward, hunched, sprinting from tree to tree. The ground is pockmarked with dirt and bullets, and he slips the last few feet behind the logs.

Two minutes pass, silence, and he waves them forward.

"They're gone," Bull says.

"Shifty?"

"I 'on't see nothin', sir."

Nixon rises and knows at once they're too late.

The road stretches out, a gray-black line leading west. Spent shells and pine needles litter the beaten brown snow. The silhouettes of two caved-in gunner posts are barely visible. The sun is setting; shadows gather in a smeared pool of blood.

"Spread out," Martin says. "Stay quiet."

Babe drops to his knees in the center of the road, fingers reaching for the scarlet slush.

"Ten feet," he chokes. "Ten fuckin' feet."

Bull passes him, crossing to the far side, head sweeping back and forth. Shifty finds traces of boot tracks in the blood; he points this out to Babe, and they grab Doc and try to follow the fading trail.

They search until the snow stops again. Nixon never moves.

Martin gathers the boys back together with a few sharp words. Mid-conference, Babe and Shifty and Doc Roe wander in from the midnight fog.

"Krauts had a trench dug," Shifty tells them. "They must've been in there when we came up. Saw some tracks leadin' north, back toward that town, but¼"

Shifty shrugs, and looks at his boot, kicking the clots of snow.

Doc Roe raises his clenched fist. His fingers uncurl, stiff and crackling with frost—something gold glitters quietly in his palm.

"Found this, sir, in the snow," he says, nearly a whisper. "His tags, too, a few feet further."

He can't look at it, but Nixon holds out his own hand; a thing small and round drops onto his skin. Doc lays the chain carefully across his fingers.

Dick Winters is gone.

When they get back, Colonel Sink is calling and 0300 has long since passed. It is Christmas Eve.

Dawn comes, misty-brown and clouded, and Nix crawls back into the foxhole he'd been sleeping in before the patrol left, and pulls the blanket up over his head. The news spreads quickly.

At noon, Ron Speirs from Dog Company wanders in from the solid fog, standing above Nixon's head until he turns and pays attention.

"When?" he chokes, dropping to his knees, muffled by the passing shadow of the changing watch.

"Last night," Nix replies, pulling the thin blanket tighter. "Patrol. Dike wanted to go for a walk, figured the boys were going the same way."

The metal squeaks under Speirs's fingers.

"Where is he?"

"Don't know," Nix replies casually, picking at a thread in the blanket. "They said he took off, soon as the shots started."

There is silence, and he thinks for a moment that he's finally alone again, but the snow shifts, and Speirs slides down into the hole with him.

"There has to be more."

"There is," Nix confirms. "Dike wouldn't keep his damn mouth shut, and when Dick got up to pull him back in line—"

"Sonofabitch."

"Yeah," Nix agrees. He puts his hand in his jacket pocket, fingers resting over the cloth he'd wrapped Dick's tags in.

Speirs leaves a few minutes later. No one else comes to see him that afternoon.

They line up for dinner at sundown. Buck drags Nix from his foxhole, props him up on a fallen tree and finds him some stew. Some of the boys gather around, picking at their plates, shivering, swallowing bites that lost their taste last week.

Nixon stabs his spoon into something vaguely meat-shaped. George Luz sits across, fiddling with a knob on his radio, cheeks streaked with dirt. He glances up; his eyes catch Nixon's and he looks back down.

"Asshole couldn't find a snowball in a blizzard."

Nix had been around that morning, like almost every morning since they got to Bastogne, and he and Dick had grinned at each other over Luz's shoulders—the sergeant's fingers were thick and numb, and it took the two of them to help him get the pack right.

"You all set?" Dick asked, patting Luz hard on the shoulder. Luz grinned back, winking.

"Set and shutting up, sir."

"Good."

They moved on down the line, checking the boys, their supplies, trading idle chat.

"Now, no heroics, Dick."

His smirk widened, head turned down, polishing the muzzle of his rifle with clean white hands.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Nixon pulled out a cigarette; they both watched the flame flare and die.

"Y'know you don't have many left."

"Yeah, well," Nixon replied, dismissive, "I'll manage."

"Just don't come—"

"Would'ya go already?"

"I'm leaving."

Dick started off, ordering Babe on point, and Nixon watched a moment, then dropped the cigarette in the crystalline snow.

"Don't get lost!"

And Dick was still smiling as he walked away, shepherding Dike in the line, glancing back one last time, hand raised, before the white curtain dropped, swallowing him.

He's staring at Babe, suddenly, and the private stares back, terrified.

"Nix?"

Buck nudges his arm, but Nix doesn't look away.

"I was just thinkin'¼"

"What?"

Babe breaks first, eyes darting back to his plate, body shrinking in. He'd been missing the whole day—Guarnere'd found him alone in the abandoned O.P.

"D'you think he was dead?"

The boys are quietly uneasy, faces pointed down and away. Buck stares, and Nixon searches the dirt at their feet.

"What?"

"D'you think they just let him die?" he repeats. "Or could they've¼could they've taken him?"

"Nix¼"

"I'm serious."

Buck shakes his head, disgusted, scraping his meager slice of bread along the razor rim of the bowl.

"They've been taking prisoners," Nix says defensively. Buck's reply is soft and placating, aimed at the ground at his feet.

"Lew, c'mon—"

"Maybe they were gonna try an' get something out of him. You said he was still alive."

Even the grub line has stopped; everyone stares, and Nixon wheels on Babe.

"What if he didn't die when you left him there?" he demands. "_You_ said he was alive—you were tryin' to get to him!"

"Nix—"

"Maybe they figured he was an officer, and they could take him—"

The fog is shivering and translucent, a mirage liquefying from dozens of blackened faces ringed in dirt staring up.

"He could've gone in one of the ditches or-or fallen into their trench or tried to crawl his way back here and got lost—He could still be out there, waiting—"

He gulps the air, feverish. He's standing above the company, above the trees, and he can see the jagged black line of the Kraut trenches, Dick hunched in a corner, eyes blank, hands clutched loosely over his neck.

"What if we missed him?" he says wildly. "We should go back—look again. What if it—maybe it wasn't as bad as—"

"Nixon, stop it!"

And he does, then, comes crashing right back down. The boys are gathered at his feet, forks abandoned, faces painted in horror. Bull to his left, and Martin, Babe with his head down in his hands, and Buck standing in the middle, furious.

Nixon looks down at the bowl he's dropped, the stew a brown splatter over blood-and-piss-stained snow, and turns and walks carefully into the road.

He walks for a while, and the woods echo with the sound of his footsteps and soft swearing as he tries to light a cigarette. He doesn't hear Sink's Jeep coming.

Dike is sitting in the back.

It takes four repetitions for Nix to answer Sink's call.

"Sorry, sir, I just—"

"It's alright," Sink says kindly. "We're heading back to 2d. Wan' a lift?"

Dike stares back, and Nixon can't read what's there, so he nods stupidly and climbs aboard.

He blinks, and they're back at the line, Buck standing just to the left of the road. Nixon looks down, at his hands, and steps last from the Jeep.

The boys are still eating, gathered in a fractured circle, shrouded in half-dome of splintered pines. They stop moving, eyes on Dike and Nixon—and Sink, to a lesser extent. The colonel pauses.

"Back at Division, they're sittin' down to a Christmas dinner a' turkey-an'-hooch," he remarks to no one in particular, smile yanked on. Buck is to his right, Dike and Nixon to his left, all faces blank but one. Sink claps Buck on the arm warmly. "But goddamn if I 'on't like Joe Domingus's rancid-ass beans better."

There is no reaction. Sink smiles, defeated.

"Hello, Easy Comp'ny."

They mumble something in return, and Sink sets to work.

He stands in line, talks his way up and down the company, stopping at each soldier, offering a brief word or ill-fitting smile—the effort made is more than evident to the boys, and they are grateful.

They make jokes again, as Joe passes through, pot held before him, offering up seconds that don't exist. They eat; they smile; they forget.

Nix drops to the ground against a tree, and catches Doc staring. The medic looks back down, blood-red fingers picking at the wrapper of a chocolate bar. Once more, Dike is gone.

The sun slips below the horizon beyond Buck's shoulder, and Sink rises, finished.

"Unfortunately, I came down t'night on official business. First off, General McAuliffe wishes y'all a 'Merry Christmas.'"

The return to that is derisive at best. Sink grins.

"What's merry 'bout all this, you ask? Well, just this: we've stopped cold everythin' that's been thrown at us—north, east, south, and west."

Nix looks around at the boys. Martin's face is down-turned, eyes hidden. He and Bull sit apart from the rest. Luz is still quiet, fingers motionless, head hanging. Babe has disappeared again; Guarnere stabs at his empty bowl, scowling.

"Now, two days ago—"

There's a spike of pain in his gut, and Nix flinches.

"—the German commander demanded our honorable surrender—to save the U.S.A. encircled troops from total annihilation."

Sink pulls a piece of torn paper from his pocket, waves it in the air before them.

"The German commander received the following reply: _To the German commander—NUTS!_"

Nix's taken the tags out without thinking. There is a stretch of brief silence—cold fills it, and the boys break into crackles of jittery laughter.

Nixon runs his fingers over the tags' little raised letters, tracing the contours of Dick's name.

When he looks up, Sink is settling beside him, and the boys are stumbling away, pushing aside the heavy curtain of snow as they shout good-nights.

"How are you, Lewis?"

The ring makes a crater beneath the bundled cloth, and Nixon rounds it out with his fingertip.

"I'm fine, sir."

His voice is thick and low. Joe Domingus clatters his pots, packing up for the day.

Sink watches the naked ring turn over and over in Nixon's fingers. The cloth is forgotten; the tags glitter over the curve of Nix's knee.

"Dike told me what happened."

"I'll bet," Nixon says darkly. Sink glances, studying him, surprised. "Anything else, sir?"

"Buck'll take C.O., seein' as Welsh's still wounded."

"Yeah."

He doesn't ask permission, simply stands and leaves Sink behind, walking out into the trees.

Nixon reaches his hole and tosses his unused rifle to the side. Doc Roe passes by, and calls out softly.

"Sir, you seen Heffron?"

"No. Why?"

"He ain't in 'is hole."

Dick's wedding ring sits heavily in his pocket, and Nix pulls the tarp over his foxhole, sliding back beneath his blanket.

There's shelling, at midnight; his hole lights up with the flash of a German flare, and when he hears someone scream for a medic, he casts an eye to the far side of the empty hole and rolls over. He sleeps until dawn.

On Christmas Day, Nixon puts a knife through Dike's shoulder.

Buck gives a shout, and there's Talbert and Lipton at his sides, pulling his arms, and he shoves them both back—easier, now that he's sober and pissed as hell.

"You sonofabitch," he snarls, angling the blade, and Dike gives a whimper of pain. "I oughta just fuckin' kill you."

A shroud of fog had veiled the line at dawn. First light was muddled, a blank gray wall separating them from the Krauts. The boys sang carols between the shellings.

There was breakfast, somewhere, and Dike came stumbling in, red-faced and puffing gallantry. Nixon took half a look and snapped.

"C-can't," Dike gasps desperately, pawing at Nixon's fingers.

"Yeah?" Nix challenges, pressing harder. "Who's gonna stop me? Huh? Who d'you think would help a bastard like you?"

And Tab and Lip fall suddenly away; he feels the cold of their shadows withdrawing. He shakes Dike once, hard.

"Tell me!" he demands. "Who would save you, you piece of shit? Who'd be fuckin' stupid enough?"

Warmth slips down his naked hand, rancid gusts of Dike's terror-fueled breath against his face.

"Nix, c'mon."

Buck pries, testing the soggy ground of ethics, hand closing around Nixon's upper arm, stilling the hand connected to the knife digging into Dike's shoulder bone.

The whites of Dike's eyes are dishwater speckled red, and Nixon yanks the knife, drawing out and down. Dike gives a pathetic cry of pain, slumping down against the tree.

Nixon studies the blade, the little droplets of blood rolling off the tip into perfect circles in the snow. He leans forward and carefully wipes it clean on Dike's tightly-buttoned wool coat.

He looks up at the gathered crowd, and orders Doc to go take care of Dike.

His knuckles are stained red, and he doesn't stop until he reaches his empty foxhole. He drops the bucket twice trying to clean his hands.

Strayer calls them up to battalion later. They stand solemnly in the colonel's tent, but no one mentions Dike.

Regiment wants a list of living and dead, so the telegrams can go out first. Buck's come along to help.

"She won't know yet," Buck says, hands clawed around a steaming mug. They are getting nowhere.

"Who?"

There's silence, and Nix turns his head slowly over. Buck's staring, incredulous, the fragments of trees smudged over the canvas behind him.

"Audrey."

"Oh, yeah," Nixon says. He kicks an overturned coffee can. The ricochet is only a dull ping.

There's some light, but not enough to distinguish dawn or dusk. The poles of the world seem to have shifted, and the colors have gone mute.

"Why'd you say that?"

"What?"

Nix pauses, and decides to rephrase.

"What made you think of her?"

"I dunno¼I just—"

"Forget it."

Buck's profile hardens to something nearly solid, maybe anger, and Nixon turns back to the register.

"Look, Nix, I know you never liked her, but—"

"Who said I never liked her?" Nix snaps. "I like her just fuckin' fine, alright?"

"Alright, Nix! _Jesus_."

Buck tosses the coffee bitterly away.

"I just feel bad for her, is all. I mean, Christ, they were only married a coupla months, and now she's¼"

Nixon can feel the sharp curve of the ring in his pocket, and he carelessly blots the pen over someone's name, disgusted.

"She's a widow, now, I guess," Buck finishes lamely.

They walk back together, quietly, picking their way through slop-colored snow. Tiny pinpricks of red, deeper and blacker as they near the line, lead the way.

The morning is bright and harsh, and Nixon wakes to the scream of Allied fighters and the soft _whumf_ of new supplies dropping through branches. The fog has broken, and so has the line, as Patton's 3d spills across the Ardennes. Post resumes, and Nix puts off the death register. He takes temporary command of the battalion.

"We didn' need to be fuckin' _rescued_," Guarnere snaps, spitting on the camera. "You got that?"

Nix watches the exchange and says nothing. Morale is scarce.

Sundown means suppertime, and night after night, Joe slops gloomy broth into rust-ridged bowls. Nix accepts his portion in silence, eyeing the chum-hungry gaze of the reporter, and steps away from the line.

The men are islands; officers wade between the stony archipelagoes, surveying, half-heartedly demanding smiles and cheerful waves at the camera as it clicks through the reel.

There is a week, somewhere, of relief, of intermittent shelling and gunfire. Twenty or so boys are killed, and the bodies, bootless by the time they reach Bastogne, pile up outside the hospital. Nixon keeps the tags in a coffee can at the C.P.

The Krauts attack again on New Year's Day. Nothing has changed.

Toye is hit at some point that day, a nick on his arm that bleeds too much in the night, and he disappears from the line. Guarnere joins Luz and Perconte, unable to sleep in the empty foxhole.

The next day, they're finally moving. Nix buries the unfinished death register behind Easy's C.P.

"Fuck the telegrams."

They march for the Bois Jacques. It is an improvement the boys face with indifference. The path they've been given is strewn with arms, legs, bullet shells. The bodies are faceless, and that makes it almost easier to pretend they're all Krauts.

They arrive, dig in, and wait.

Half-hour pauses between the shellings find Buck and Nixon huddled together over Luz's radio, begging for relief or supplies. Both come, eventually, too late or too few, and the Krauts are whittling away at the line.

Doc makes fewer and fewer trips to Bastogne; the hospital is bombed out and then moved, but now they're hoarding supplies. The bodies still pile up.

Toye comes back on the fourth. This was never the adventure they signed up for, but they still manage to crack a smile.

Replacements have arrived.

"It's called _wounded_, Peanut," Martin says. "Not _injured_. Injured's if you fall outta a tree or somethin'."

Skip wraps a welcoming arm around Pvt. Webb. Inside, they're already counting down the days he has left.

"Don't worry," he says, "there's so much crap flyin' around, you're bound to get dinged sometime. Hell, almost every one of these guys've been hit at least once."

Nixon and Sink look on, the Foy conversation awkwardly postponed.

"'Cept for Alley; he's a two-timer."

Alley grins.

"He landed on broken glass in Normandy and got peppered by a potato masher. Bull, there? He got a piece of exploding tank in Holland."

Skip swings them around, away from Bull's downcast face.

"Now George Luz here…has never been hit," Skip says, bemused. "You're one lucky bastard."

"Takes one to know one," Luz offers, moving away.

"Yeah, well, consider us blessed," Skip says, after a moment. "Liebgott, that skinny little guy? He got pinked in the neck in Holland. And right next to him—that other skinny little guy—that's Popeye. He got shot in his scrawny little butt in Normandy."

Lieb smiles, briefly.

"And, uh, Buck got shot in his rather _large_ butt in Holland."

Buck models for them graciously.

"Yeah, that's kind of an Easy Company tradition, gettin' shot in the ass."

"Hell, even 1st Sergeant Lipton there," Skip continues, arm sliding free of Webb. The kid spins slowly around, amusing but still unwelcome. "He got hit by a coupla pieces of tank shell burst in Carentan. One chunk in the face. 'Nother chunk nearly took out his nuts."

They chuckle, and Lip looks mildly embarrassed, scraping up his stew.

"How are those nuts, Sarge?"

"Doin' just fine, Bill," Lip says. "Nice of you to ask."

They laugh appreciatively, and Skip elbows the kid into the circle.

"Buck, there, is our C.O."

"For now," Buck says, passing through. "You boys behave. I gonna check the boys on the line."

"Yes, sir," Malarkey grins, flinging a piece of bark at his retreating back.

"What's he mean, _for now_?" Webb asks, when Buck's gone far enough.

"Ah, don' listen to 'im,' Guarnere says. "The lieutenant's not goin' anywhere."

Webb, eager to please, speaks again, musingly.

"Well, maybe he meant when Captain Winters comes back."

The boys shift; Malarkey and Skip and Martin and Bull staring around, and Bill stabs at his stew.

"Cap'n Winters ain't comin' back."

"His name was on my transfer," Webb says sheepishly.

"He's dead," Martin says. "Got hit 'round Christmas."

There is silence again. Webb seems to know he's crossed a line.

"Was he a good C.O.?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he was."

Penk laughs suddenly, shoving a fist against his mouth.

"You remember just before Normandy? When he wrestled Schmitz?"

"Damn near broke his back," Malark grins. "Never saw a guy move so fast before."

"'Cept when weekend passes came," Toye nods. "He'd be the first outta the compound."

"He'd turn beet red when we asked him 'bout those dates," Guarnere laughed. "Looked like a goddamn tomato in uniform."

The boys laugh, too, and Webb grins. He has been welcomed at last.

Sink's voice draws Nixon back—he's been talking the whole time, but he probably hasn't said much to be missed.

"Don't you agree, captain?" Sink demands.

"I…"

"Wasn't listening," Sink says sternly. His face breaks a moment later, a pithy grin. "It's alright, Lewis. How've you been?"

"I, uh…"

He considers, but it's too complicated, and he offers a faked smile.

"I'm doing fine, sir."

"The boys?"

"They'll be ready for Foy, sir."

"Good to hear," Sink says, clapping him on the shoulder. He leaves a little later.

And they leave as well, the next day, retracing snowed-in footprints to their original position. It's a merry-go-round, the battalions revolving slowly around the cog of Foy, and Toye is the first to bitch about someone shitting in his foxhole.

"Someone's gonna fuckin' die!"

Trees they'd leaned against a week ago are cracked stumps, bleeding charred branches. Needles cake the snow in a thick black carpet, speckled through with red and scabs of bark. The Krauts are clearly well-acquainted with the area.

They bide their time on both sides of the line, and Nix helps reinforce the foxholes. It'll hit soon, and they can feel it in their bones. This won't end well.

The scream comes late in the afternoon—"_Incoming!"_—and they're running for cover; Nixon drops into a half-finished hole, hands clamped around his head, waiting it out.

He feels splinters ricochet off his helmet; disembodied laughter floats on the pauses between the shells. The Krauts have them zeroed, and there's nowhere to go.

Nix is sure he can see himself die.

It ends, abruptly, and he lifts his head at last. The shrieks have changed, calling out for medics, for the boys to stay in place. Another barrage is sure to come, and he sees Doc Roe's stealthy shadow flitting between the blurred trunks.

"Help!" someone calls out near him, pathetically. "Help, I'm stuck!"

He scrambles up and out of his hole, slipping, sliding, and as he approaches he recognizes Babe's voice.

One hand sticks between a break in the branches, waving help forward.

"Think I overdid it on the cover for my foxhole?" Babe jokes, blanched when they finally pull him out.

"You okay?" Nix asks, gazing quickly around.

"Yeah."

"Stay ready," he says, and takes off running.

He doesn't get a chance to take inventory before the second wave comes.

Nixon dives for cover, somewhere, anywhere.

He can hear no laughter this time.

When it's all over, he takes the body count. There's nothing left of Penkala or of Hoobler. Hashey took a hit to the shoulder, Skip a slice on the leg. Webb's dead.

He stumbles over an arm, searching out Buck. He disengages, and it's someone else entirely that bends him over and picks it up. Joe Toye's watch is attached to the dribbling wrist, and Nix staggers forward.

Most of the rest of Toye is lying in rags and ribbons in a small crater. A red lake surrounds, waded through with boot prints. Guarnere kneels beside it, fingers reaching uncertainly for Joe's slack face.

Buck wanders off into the fog after that, coming back only to give the report to Sink and Nixon at the C.P. His voice is detached, and he roots through his pockets, extracting Toye's blood-stained tags.

Sink accepts them, in silence, and dismisses Buck.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Sink says to Nix at sunrise, as he pulls himself up into the waiting Jeep. "We still got a few things to hammer out. You ready for Foy?"

"Yes, sir," Nixon says, the lie drawing bile up his throat.

The truth he admits to himself as he curls up against a crumbled stone wall later at night, trying to sleep, is that he's never really been ready for anything.

He doesn't know the first goddamn thing about what he's doing here. Kath'd been making him crazy since the baby was born, and he'd run away for Europe as fast as his feet could ever carry him—he just wished someone'd told him a war was on.

He'd lost no time getting rid of his wedding ring on the floor of some English girl's bedroom, but he like to think it was all fine—he wore Dick's ring on his tags now, for safekeeping.

He took it out every now and then, running calloused fingers over the smooth gold curve.

She had been a bad idea at first, and here, alone, Nix could admit that Buck was right—he'd hated Audrey from the start. She'd been twenty when they all met, a burnt-out expatriate laundry girl, flirting the boys up and down the bar in that awful tavern.

He knew that type, he'd warned Dick; they were the kind that went for Nix himself, blood-boiling money fever spraying red across their cheeks. Only a friendly acquaintance, Dick assured him.

Normandy came then, and Dick forgot all about the little runaway bargirl, or so Nix believed, as he himself had forgotten much of his conquests, a whole month bogged in flies and German blood. Dick wrote two letters every night, one to his folks (or so Nixon thought—honest to God, France'd had the best booze so far.)

"Shouldn't you write your wife?" Dick asked pointedly one night, halfway between the glow of Paris and the filth of Carentan. His face was smooth from a recent shave, hair combed neat. "Seems you might want to let her know you're alright."

"She can read the death lists."

"What about your little girl?"

"You never met 'em," Nix drunkenly charged. "You don't know 's much 'bout me as you think."

Dick laughed and whittled away at a bit of charcoal, making it small and thin and with a sharp point.

"I'm _complex_," Nix insisted, squinting his meaning across the unfired rifle on his knees. Dick was floating on the bottom of his whiskey bottle, amber-glass and smirking. "You—I got you pegged, my friend."

"Know me in-and-out, huh?" Dick said, bruising the charcoal on his thumbtip.

"You're simple, Dick," Nix confirmed, and after a beat, "I mean, you're a good guy. Not complex."

"I just know right from wrong. That's all."

"First I've known," Nix said, raising a toast. Dick unrolled some stolen parchment, testing the makeshift pencil on the corner.

"Things you don't know 'bout me, Nix," he said, shaking his head, ducking down.

But Nix hadn't asked what he didn't know. He _knew_ Dick. Always has.

He takes the ring out now, turns it over and under. Audrey was waiting for him when they got back to England, scandalized at his slight wound, and Dick minded less and less when the boys teased him about his attentive little nurse.

They were casual and coy, flirtations hidden under layers of friendly conversations over a perspiring bar. Nix hadn't even noticed Dick leaving the base every weekend, at first.

The boys had known even before _he_ had, and their days were spent in physical training or in pursuit of some ripe gossip to whisper to their one-show girls about the captain and his girl and their weekend Oxford pictures.

Nix'd gotten lost somewhere in the narrative thread, still suspicious, still hateful. Dick had never looked so happy.

They'd insulted his masculinity, his morality, and he struck them all dumb when he calmly confessed the engagement.

Nix can feel the late August sweat roll remembrance down his neck, stinging a thousand cuts as fingers slid over the seams of a rough basketball. The cogs in his mind were turning, trying to wrap around where he'd gotten lost, where he'd been wrong about his own damn best friend.

Blue eyes twinkle at him across the extinguished torch, and Nixon rears, chucking a nearby empty bottle. It shatters on the stones.

He never really knew why they worked—two weeks engaged and Father Mahoney was blessing the union beneath the shade of a birch tree. Barely eight months they'd known each other, and it was soul mates. Nix had gone with Kathy four years before she shackled herself to his feet. It was like they lived in different houses.

They'd had only a week, and then it was Market Garden, and Dick Winters hadn't let the burning cross of marriage faze him at all. He'd told Nix as much—he didn't need to worry about a younger woman because he loved Audrey and she loved him right back.

And so Kath was in Jersey, Audrey in Aldbourne, Nix in Belgium, and Dick was dead the whole world over.

"Cap'n?"

"What're you doin' up, Babe?"

"Just headed to the line, sir. I heard something. You alright?"

"Fine, private."

Babe folds out of a lump of darkness, sliding down over the shadow of Dick's watchful eyes.

"Haven't seen you around lately."

"I ain't been around," Babe confesses. "I've been pulling O.P. a lot."

"Buck says you volunteer."

He ducks his chin.

"I go where I'm needed, sir," he says softly, and Nixon almost relents then, almost accepts it, seeing himself mirrored in the private's dejected pose.

He watches Babe thumb a pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket.

"Where'd you get those?"

"Jolly old St. Luz," Babe says.

"Bum one?"

"Yeah."

There is silence for some time.

"I keep thinkin', y'know?"

Nix doesn't know, doesn't really care, never really cared to try.

"'Bout what?" he asks.

"The day we left. A'bourne, I mean."

"Yeah?"

"How we were all in the pub, an' everyone was drinkin' and talkin' over each other. The officers were all gone, an' Audrey came out from back 'f the bar, an'…"

He drags a ragged sleeve over his nose.

"She sat with us awhile, talkin' and tellin' stories. We—we could tell she was just tryin' to keep us from thinkin' too much 'bout the next day, y'know? Guess she's tryin' not to think 'bout it too."

"Yeah," Nix says thickly.

"We—we all promised, right? I-it was late, an' all the reg'lars were gone home, an' she…she looked us all right in the eye, and she says, 'You bring him home, boys. You bring 'im home to me.' An'—an' we all said yeah, and promised, and she looked so…"

He trails off, overcome, and Nix shifts, useless.

"An' I promised her—_we_ promised her—'f anything happened, someone'd—'ould get his stuff, y'know? An-and send it to her. Make sure that she'd…"

Bile rises in his throat, because he'd made the same promise, late that same night, falling asleep to the sound of their soft lovemaking in the next room. And she'd come to his room just before dawn, crawling up to the top, slipping under the quilt beside him, tears running across the pillow as she begged him for some reassurance that her husband would come back whole.

He'd never before considered just how much he hates Dick Winters.

"An' now the fuckin' Krauts've stripped 'im. What're we—what'm I supposed to say to her? How can—how can we just…?"

Nix looks down. There is nothing but snow at his feet, but at his side is the coffee can frothing with all that's left of hundreds of boys he's known.

"I keep telling myself it'll get better," Nix muses. "That every day gets me closer and closer to goin' home, but it's like I forget what goin' home means, what'll be waiting for me—for all of us—once we get there. I almost…Christ, I almost miss Normandy."

The subject has nothing left between them, and Babe stands suddenly.

"I gotta get to O.P.," he says, and leaves.

Easy rises before first light and heads out. The boys of Dog and Fox pity them; it's like poison in their glances as the men march toward combat.

Nix gives Buck the briefing. It'll get nasty.

The men are varyingly numb, lost, fingers frozen solid on the trigger. They're ready for everything and nothing.

When the attack begins, Babe's trying to remember his grandmother's goodbye prayer, but a swift kick on the ankle sets him charging with the squad.

An eighth-mile of open fields peppered with craters, and Luz is certain they're all gonna die.

Almost half of them do, and Buck surges them onward, but then the lieutenants are too green to be of any use. Peacock suffers a seizure of fear; half his assigned platoon stops in the middle of the field, as ordered, the other half springs for safety.

Nixon is screaming, somewhere too far away, and Foley's trying to flank around towards Item, but they're dropping like ice-charred flies.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Nixon shouts from the tree line. "You've got no cover there. Move! _Move_!"

"What're your orders, sir?" Lipton asks Peacock. The lieutenant clings to his unfired rifle. "Sir! _What are your orders_?"

The Germans have spun up the mortars, and the first hoot signals the loss of another half-squad.

"Get your men moving, goddammit! Get them up; get moving!"

It's blood and bodies and chaos. Buck is turning back; his company is falling apart and he was never built for this to begin with.

"Peacock!" he shouts, as Liebgott cuts the throat of a hiding Kraut. They kick down a door and enter the half-crumbled building.

Perconte drops like a stone, and Lip's head whips around. A sniper, on the church steeple.

Nixon's worn the forest edge thin, but Sink's voice calls him back.

"Nixon, you get your ass back here!"

But he's boiling, fingers itching with the memory of Dike's blood, and he shouts past Sink's shoulder.

"Speirs! Get out there!"

And Ron sprints deftly past, defying God in a straight line. A mortar shell drops at his feet, but he's already past it, lightning black. He skids into Peacock, seizing the man's shoulders.

"I'm taking over," he says simply.

"We're spread out, sir," Lipton says, reloading. "1st is locked by a sniper at the flank, in that building."

"I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building 'til it's gone and when it's gone, I want 1st to go straight in—forget going around—everyone else follow me."

Lip is almost grinning, and Alley's shot has the sniper down fast.

For the second time, they charge.

Bull takes his squad around left. They move building to building, but the Krauts have all gathered around their tanks. He sweeps an eye around the only remaining barn.

"Empty," he tells Babe, but Babe's staring to the far end, and he doesn't follow Bull out when the platoon goes.

They all meet up near the crossroads, Speirs and Lip huddled along the mottled brickwork of the town's largest building. Buck is on the opposite road, behind an overturned wagon.

Ricochet shrapnel sprays across Lipton's face, and he falls back. They are across from the Krauts and their tank.

"Where the hell is I Company?" he shouts to Speirs.

Speirs surveys the road quickly and makes a decision.

"Wait here."

Maybe it was just that the Krauts couldn't believe what they were seeing, but at first, no one shoots. Speirs runs straight through their line, hurdling over bodies and potholes. He reaches a short wall and slips over, disappearing for moments.

And then, after hooking up the I Company, he comes back.

Lipton laughs, short and loud and hard.

It's over after that; the Krauts are dead, and the boys collect in the square.

"I've been workin' on the railroad…all the live long day!"

There is another sniper, different building. Four more boys are killed, but Shifty takes one shot and it's all finally over. Dog moves in from reserve, plus half of 3d battalion, flooding Foy with too many dark, hungry faces.

Lipton begins his rounds, counting off familiar faces.

"Beautiful wound, Lip. Got me right in my ass," Perconte grins. "You believe that?"

Bull grunts, lumbering slowly. Perc's hands are fisted tight around his neck, and the smaller man swings back and forth, woozy. Lip laughs again, sounding slowly more human, and slaps Perc's arm.

"Bull? Your squad?"

"Made it out fine," Bull says. "'Cept Babe. Haven't seen him since we got in town."

Lip absorbs this and moves on, past the crossroads post, where the officers gather in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"Well, it's not a vote against you," Speirs was saying.

"I don't mind," Buck replies, mopping the blood and grime from his face. "I liked the platoon charge better, to be honest. Too many lives on my head."

"Mind staying on as my X.O.?"

"Sure," Buck grins, slapping his hand into Speirs's. "At least until Harry gets back."

Babe enters the plaza from the far side, cradling something long and small and cloth-swaddled in his arms. They don't see him at first.

He ignores Guarnere's hail, eyes wide and blank. The thing in his arms is covered in a sheet dyed red with the setting sun. One end rests up against his shoulders, the other folded over his arm.

"Babe? Babe, what you got?"

It gets the officers' attention, eventually; Babe marches straight past the crossroads to the bullet-marked field beyond.

Reverently, he lays his burden down, and looks around.

There are two spades beside the door of a nearby shed. As the men gather, he begins to dig.

"Babe?" Buck says.

"What's going on?"

It's only Easy around, and an icy breeze plays with the edge of the cloth. It flutters, comes untucked and flies up, revealing a little girl's pale gray face.

She is small and thin and tragically dead. Black curls wisp around her face, eyes closed, cheeks sunken in. A smudged bullet hole nestles gently between her brows. She can't have been more than ten.

Babe is mechanical, dirt flying past his head. The ground is nearly solid with frost.

Lipton steps up.

"Babe, what're you doing?" he says, approaching.

"Just leave me alone," Babe spits out.

"Private, what's going on? What is that?"

"'S a little girl, Sarge," Babe replies, grunting, full weight behind each turn. "Found her, dead. I jus' wanna bury her."

Fear is poison in combat, as is insanity. Lip's hand closes gently over Babe's arm.

"Just leave her be," he says softly. "The locals'll take care of it."

"Case you ain't noticed, the fuckin' locals are Krauts," Babe says, voice rising. "And they don't give a fuck 'bout the ones they leave behind."

"Private, drop that spade."

"No."

"Private."

Lip grabs him full-on this time, hands closing over his shoulders, tight. The hole is two feet deep.

"Let me go, Lip," Babe says.

"It isn't your job."

"The fuck it ain't!"

"Babe—"

"Let me fuckin' go, Lip! Let me go!"

Babe struggles and shoves the older man away, wild, screaming.

"Just let me do this, Lip, okay? Just fuckin' lemme do this!"

Babe gestures violently with the spade, pointing to the sky, the trees, the blasted buildings, swinging it down to the white-wrapped bundle at Foley's feet.

"She's just a little fuckin' girl and the fuckin' Krauts left her to—" he chokes on something, swallows hard. "Just goddamn left her!"

He gulps air feverishly, blood frozen on his skin.

"Just please let me do this," Babe begs, and Lip nods slowly.

"Yeah, Babe," he says. It's not about her at all anymore, so he climbs up out of the hole, stumbling at the top. Hours after, and they're standing in Foy for the very first time.

Babe's Bull's squad, though, and he crouches at the top of the hole, cigar stump clamped tight between his teeth.

"You al'right?" he asks solemnly, after Babe's gone back to digging.

"Fine," the boy spits out, spade slamming into the frozen ground. "Never fuckin' better."

It catches the edge of his words, a twitch that wavers across his tone, and Babe rubs his face furiously with one dirt-caked hand. The spade cracks against rocks, and he gasps for breath, ragged, choking on something deeper than the cuts across his neck.

When he starts to cry, no one says a word.

They watch him struggle for a few minutes more, the spade slipping from his hands once or twice, sobs growing louder, echoing off the walls around them.

The sun slips down, painting the muddy snow scarlet. Guarnere looks around, then jumps down and takes the second spade. He'd picked up just enough pieces of Toye to understand, and they dig the grave silently together.

When they finish, there is only a small mound of dirt. Babe pockets a lock of the girl's hair and a small satchel she'd had tied to her belt. He can't explain why.

They leave the unmarked grave quietly, in small groups. They will move out in a few hours.

Noville is next, but it's an easy routine, a simple procedure, and they don't notice the way they're still not really there.

Rachamps is warm and brown, and they stop in a church until Regiment can find them a place to bunk. The nuns bring out a choir of young girls, pale, ragged, voices like angels. Lipton and Guarnere set out to write up a roster for Speirs. Babe finds an empty corner of the back pew and closes his eyes.

It's black outside when Nixon arrives; Doc Roe shakes Babe gently, and he stumbles into line, scraping sleep from his eyes.

There is a barn waiting for them, and it looks so much like Holland that Babe chokes, and crawls into a far stall.

They bed down in straw and warmth. Kerosene lamps light every other post, and Babe can barely see the silhouettes of thirty exhausted men leaning up against each other.

Nixon and Buck are in the loft above him.

It is late; they are curled up and ready, but sleep doesn't come.

"You were right about me," Nix says softly.

"How?"

"I hated her."

Buck chuckles.

"I didn't mean anything by it, Nix."

"I know," Nixon says quickly. "I just…Christ Almighty, I hated her."

Buck laughs again, a little louder.

"Hey, wanna see something?"

There's a pause, and Babe hears a metallic clink.

"Doc found it in the snow. I've been keepin' it on my tags."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Nix sighs. "I haven't sent back any of his things. I just packed them up with my own. And there's this."

Another pause.

"He wrote it in Holland, after turning down the X.O. job. Asked me to send it, if anything…"

They are silent again for awhile.

"Why didn't you?" Buck asks quietly.

"Because…'cause I don't know why. Maybe I thought it'd bring him back. It's just…"

Nixon sighs, and a few speckles of hay drift down.

"What?"

"I send this…it's over. Dick Winters is dead and never coming back. I guess…"

"What?"

"I guess there's a part of me still hoping he's alive."

Nixon laughs, softly, self-deprecating.

"Stupid, huh?"

Babe looks up, but there are only spider lines of white light.

"I've been hoping the same thing."

Doc slides down against the wall beside him, and Babe flinches.

"How you doin', Babe?"

He says nothing, picking at the tears in his jacket.

"What's that?"

Babe glances down, following the direction of Doc's jutting chin. The tattered strap of the girl's dirty satchel lies in his numb fist, and Babe unfolds his fingers.

He mumbles something.

"What?"

"I said _I don't know_."

Liebgott's eyes flicker toward them from across the wide aisle, then back down to his dirt-caked nails.

"What's in it?"

Babe says nothing, tugging at the frayed ribbon. The sides of the bag fall open. Inside is a delicately folded piece of paper, which Babe extracts with two shaking fingers.

"It's a letter," Doc says. "Can I see it?"

"Yeah," Babe mutters, shoving his hand out. Doc takes it by the edges, careful. He opens it, smoothing the muddied paper against his knee.

Thin, scratchy black lines cross the page, running drunkenly up and down, lines rippling over the thick paper as if composed of water and just as apt to evaporate under closer inspection.

"Give it here," Babe says quietly. Doc studies him, and hands the page over.

Babe struggles, squinting, mouthing the words.

"Malarkey," Doc calls out. "Pass that lamp down."

"What for?" the sergeant asks, unhooking the nearest lantern. It passes hand to hand.

"A letter," Babe replies. "Found it in Foy."

"Where?"

"The little girl," he says quietly. "She had it with 'er."

"You gonna read it?"

Babe shrugs noncommittally and peers closer. The nearest faces are turning his way.

He reads silently for a time.

"Christ!"

"What?"

"Listen to this—"

Babe leans over, clearing his throat.

"'I don't think I'll live very long—'"

He scans down the page.

"Hey, Bill! Hey, get Guarnere over here."

Guarnere comes grumbling after a moment, tossing himself in the straw across from Babe.

"What?"

"Look at this!" Babe says, waving the paper. "That little girl had a letter on her."

"So?"

"It wa'n't written by her," Doc replies, glancing the page over. "A soldier wrote this."

"Yeah, and listen to this: 'I was born in Philadelphia,' on the south side."

"'Nother Philly boy?" Guarnere says, shaking his head, grinning. "Jesus fuckin' Christ—did everyone on the goddamn south side join the paratroops?"

"Does it say anything else?" Malarkey asks, leaning in.

"Yeah, yeah it's a whole letter," Babe nods. "Fuckin' crazy…he must've been a prisoner or something."

"Read it to us," Doc suggests. Babe is skeptical.

"C'mon," Guarnere says. "It's not like anyone's gonna get any goddamn sleep 'round here."

Babe looks up; half the barn is paying attention. Nixon and Buck lean over the edge of the loft, listening in.

"Alright," Babe says, resigned. "I'll try."

Malarkey adjusts the lamp, casting an orange glow on the gathered faces. There's Lip, and Bull, and Liebgott watching them through hooded eyes. Martin's there, too, face turned away but listening just the same.

Babe clears his throat and begins.

"'I can never hope to convince you that this isn't one of their tricks, when I myself can hardly believe it is my own hand that writes this. I don't care. I am me. It is January 3rd, 1945. I exist, here, today, even if only in the remnants of coal on this paper.

"'I was born in Philadelphia in 1918, in a small house on the south side of the city. My mother chose to wait out the duration of the war with a few friends, and when my father returned from France, he moved us out to a farm in a little town a few miles from Lancaster. I never thought to ask him why he hated the city so much, but I think I understand now.

"'I don't think I'll live very long, and I wanted to tell someone about my life.

"'When I was four, my mother had a baby girl. My parents named her Anne. She was bright, always smiling, always full of questions. Two years later, Elizabeth was born. Lizzy was even more exhausting than Annie, rebellious, brimming with energy and crazy schemes. And when I was nine, I got my last sibling and my first brother: Donnie.

"'As the oldest, I had to grow up fast. By ten, I was working with my father, perched on his knee or gripping the fender of the tractor as we rode the dirt paths between our fields. In the summer, when the day was ending and our work was done, he'd carry me up into the loft of the barn, and we'd sit with our legs dangling out over the door as we watched the sun set. I'd fall asleep in the straw, listening to him talk about France and his platoon and how he wished I could have met this man or that, could have met his father or his older brothers. Pa didn't have any living family; his brothers were taken by war or disease, his parents by poverty.

"'Growing up I had two good friends. The first was Henry Dalton—we called him Hank. His father owned an apple orchard ten miles from Lawson, and we'd all work there in the fall, helping pick apples with the migrant families.

"'Our fathers traded us around. They were bonded by the ties of war, and they'd hoped that loyalty would carry on in their sons.

"'The other friend was Roger Morris. His father was the mayor of Lawson, the sergeant who'd led Pa and Mr. Dalton through the fights in France. He worked a greenhouse in town, where a lot of rich folks from around would go to get their Christmas trees. In the spring, the three of us would always be there, planting, selling, stealing the occasional dime from the tip jar.

"'We spent every moment possible together as boys. Our fathers instilled within us a keen sense of adventure that never quite overwhelmed our love of home. Roger and I calmed as we grew, the plans of treasure hunts and safaris supplanted by school reports and finding girls. Henry never really changed.

"'I have loved only six women in my life, and when I was fifteen, I fell in love for the first time. Her name was Adele.

"'She was a transfer student from Pittsburgh. Her father had had some interest in oil and steel mills, but her mother wanted a daughter that was humble. She was fifteen, too.

"'We met while I was working the counter at Walsh's General Store. She wanted a strawberry soda—I had to explain twice that we didn't have any strawberry left. I think it was her eyes that did me in.

"'I guess I can see now that she was some kind of conceited—but I loved the way she seemed to look at me without seeing me at all, like I was transparent or a ghost, and she could read every thought in my brain. She just had a way of making me feel she already knew my secrets, so I couldn't say a single thing wrong.

"'She moved away after a few months, and I heard some years later that she died of pneumonia.

"'I have loved six women in my life. The first is my mother, and the last was the one I married.

"'I loved—still love—my mother with a child's idyllic love. There is hope in that love, and an unshakable belief in goodness. I'd like to think I'd never lost that.

"'My wife I love bitterly. It is my penance, I suppose—I married a child. I would be lying if I said I didn't sometimes think I might have made a mistake.

"'But this letter isn't for my wife. I've written that letter already. The things I've said to her I'll repeat to no one. Those words, those memories, are for me. These words are for you.

"'The fifth woman I loved is perhaps the most important—if it were not for her, I would not be here, shackled beside a cold coal stove, with a little Belgian girl wrapped in my jacket and leaning on my knee, writing by a crack of light from the barred door above.

"'Her name was Edith. I'd known her from high school. I took her to our senior dance, and we'd lost touch after graduation.

"'I moved on to Pittsburgh, to college and a job grinding steel girders. I still don't know what happened to her in those years. I'd heard she'd left town, and I put her out of my mind.

"'When I graduated, I went home for awhile. Roger had gone to Yale and come back with a wife, and Hank had never been bothered to leave. I didn't know where I was. I was drifting.

"'I'd hoped to figure things out that summer, working my father's fields and the Dalton's orchards and the Morris's place. Hank had found his life in the orchard, Roger had found law and religion and a family, and the whole world seemed to spin uncontrollably around me. It was the beginning of a new decade, and Lawson was still the same small town I'd grown up in. I was still the same small boy, in a grown man's shoes.

"'I took a steady job at the local schoolhouse, teaching English and history. The subjects were dry, the pupils less than apt, but I felt at the least that my education had not been wasted. In this way, I found Edith again.

"'She taught the younger children during the afternoon. I had the older kids in the mornings, always away before noon to help out on the farms. I started spending my off hours in the back of the little schoolhouse, one eye on correcting papers, the other watching her closely. She was beautiful.

"'We started going together after that. I'd drive her up to Lancaster some nights for a late show, or we'd go to one of the socials and dance together. Being a small town, Lawson was always full of rumors, and I can't really remember how our story started, but I know it's what drove me away.

"'I was barely twenty-two, and when spring came, we were still close. Engagement whispers began to follow me down the street, but I was too embarrassed to say anything.

"'Edith seemed to almost encourage the rumors. She dropped casual hints, during the newsreels or over dinner with my folks, saying how she'd never let me paint the living room _this_ color, or how she'd never let me name the baby _that_.

"'Roger's wife told me I should settle. Mrs. Dalton insisted I should settle. My mother and sisters were after my blood every day to settle, but I never felt right with Edith. There was something missing.

"'It was around then that people began to talk about war. Pa and I'd stop at Fischer's for a few rounds of cards after a particularly long day in the fields, and we'd sit with the old men and swap fears and military gossip. They'd drag out old brushed uniforms, slipping uneasily into coats worn tight with age, and we'd gather around the radio to debate with Roosevelt's chatter.

"'I still had my year to serve, and I always knew I'd go sooner than later. I said as much one night, in late spring, tossing down another bad hand. I was down almost ten dollars, and the men looked at me, disbelieving.

"'_Ain't got the guts_, they insisted, trying to deal me back in. But I refused, and stood and left. They told me to marry my girl and settle.

"'The next day, the banns were published in the local paper.

"'I joined up that night.

"'I can't pretend what I did was good, but I'm not sorry. I think it's better to break a woman's heart in one simple act than in little pieces over time. I didn't love Edith enough then, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be rumored into marriage.

"'I was a coward. I went through basic, and when my lieutenant suggested officer training, I jumped.

"'I wanted to serve and be done, at first. But then Pearl Harbor came, and I wrote my first letter home.

"'I joined the paratroops because…because I didn't just want to waste through my stay like some of the sad recruits I'd rode the bus with. If I was going to fight, I was going to do my best. I suppose it was my first attempt at redemption.

"'It is no longer January 3rd. I don't know what day it is. The sun has risen and set many time since I started this letter. Years may have passed, for all I know.

"'I measure time by the medic and by the girl. I don't know their names; they cannot understand me. I call the medic Fritz. It gives him definition. It reminds me that we both exist.

"'I don't want to think about the men I've killed anymore, but subjects run cold quickly when you do nothing but think all day. I wonder sometimes what their names were, if they had wives or children—if they even really believed in what they were fighting for.

"'I'm not sure that I believe.

"'Everything is for sale now, and honor is no different, but there's something still left, when all else has been boiled or torn or stolen away. It is this scrap, this tiny piece of almost nothing that is truly ours. That is our hearts and souls' work. I have that, if nothing else. I have the knowledge of my men; that what I've taught them will keep them alive. I have my memories, beautiful and harsh and full of regret, but mine nonetheless.

"'They cannot take that from me. It is all I have left, and it is mine to give. I give it to you.

"'I'll leave my soul to you in this letter, and my memories, and send my body onward. It's all I have, all I can hope to offer. I don't know if that's enough.'"

Most are still awake, slumped up against rough crossbeams. The officers are out of sight, save for their feet, dangling over the edges of the loft. The lanterns have gone out, one by one, oil sucked dry from the bottom up.

There is silence for a long time.

"Is that it?" Guarnere asks, disgust creeping in. Babe is staring at the letter, eyes blank. "Babe?"

"Heffron?"

Doc touches the private's wrist gently. Babe's hands are trembling.

"Did it end?" Nixon demands from above.

"No, sir," Babe chokes.

"Then finish it."

"Cap'n—"

"Finish it, Babe!"

"Yeah, c'mon, finish up!"

The chorus crescendos, the faces of the boys pressing in around the dying circle of light, and Babe shouts them out.

"Fine!"

Resigned, he trudges on.

"'It is nearly morning. Meier plans to move today. The little girl shifts against my knee, whimpering in her sleep. She has no name.

"'They will send Fritz, soon, with our meager food. He will smile, and we will talk through pictures. Although I cannot speak, and they two cannot understand, I know I love them. I love them, and I love my parents and my sisters and my brother and my wife. I will leave that behind, too.

"'This is the last account I can give. It seems strange that my life should end here, in this terrible place, but I fought for what I knew was right, and I will apologize to no one. I will die here.

"'I will die here. And I'm so afraid.

"'I have to end quickly. First light has come, and they are coming for me. I don't know who you are, but I hope that you will pray for me. I'm afraid to die out here in the cold, but I hope this letter will reach someone. I suppose, here at the end, that all I really hope is that my life will have had some meaning.'"

The lamp at Lipton's side sputters and winks out.

"'Signed, Richard Winters, captain.'"


End file.
